The Connection #6 - The truth about Hollywood assistants

Hello!

This is the edition #6 of my monthly newsletter that I send to family, friends, and future friends (hello!) Glad you're here.

Quick update on this email:

1. I thought about what I was trying to do with these articles I send you: I’m trying to connect the dots between different worlds: entertainment, tech, business, pop-culture…  

Which made me think about the Leonardo Da Vinci quote:

“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

So I’ve renamed this from the Cool Kids Newsletter to The Connection.  

2. People like the “Cool things I found” section so I’m going to start sending these on a weekly basis.

As always, if you don't want these newsletters, click the unsubscribe link at the bottom. No worries, we'll still be friends.)

Now, back to your regularly scheduled articles and pup pup pics (hit “display images” above).

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The Truth About Being a Hollywood Assistant: My Time Working for Dennis Lehane

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Dennis Lehane wrote Shutter Island, Mystic River, and Gone Baby Gone. In 2013, I emailed him and asked if I could work for him for free. For two years, I was his assistant in Hollywood. This is an honest account of how I landed the job and what it was like working for Dennis.

You can check out the article here

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Cool things I found in the last 30 days:

• The people with power at Amazon. The senior team at Amazon (known as the S-team) has an average tenure at Amazon of 15 years. Low senior management turnover is a huge reason for Amazon’s success.

• Chris Rock’s Tamborine. It’s hard to say if this is Chris Rock’s best special. But it’s definitely his most honest. He talks about gun violence, his divorce, and dating new women. Bonus: In 2007, I reviewed Mr. Rock’s performance at New Brunswick’s Stress Factory for Rutger’s Inside Beat.  

• A brand strategy lesson from Professor Galloway. There are three places to build brand: Pre-Purchase, Purchase, and Post-Purchase. Losers are focused on Pre-Purchase (advertising), winners are focused on the latter two places. (You can access my notes on this lecture here.)

• What publishing in the future looks like. Ev Williams (Twitter, Blogger) talks about the future of publishing now that the ad-only experiment has failed.

• Getting choked unconscious. I competed in my first BJJ tournament this weekend. Here’s a one-minute highlight. Learned a lot and can’t wait to do it again.

Thanks for reading! Have a fabulous month.

Any questions, comments, or recommendations, feel free to reply directly to this email.

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